There's a Head in the Box
by The Smiling Shadow
Summary: Daniel Cain owns a special box, and in the box is the head of Herbert West. And once a year Daniel takes Herbert out of the box for one single day. And someday he says, maybe they'll both be able to die.


Daniel Cain owned a box, a wooden box his grandfather had given him saying it was meant to keep special things in when he was just a boy. Inside the box was lovely red velvet, and carvings on the top of something of a Celtic sort. Daniel Cain kept this box all these years and when the nights were quiet, the box would talk sometimes. Some days it would just talk, constantly, some days it would just plain scream. Daniel indeed kept special things in the box, special things that sometimes talked and sometimes screamed.

He'd only open it once a year on a special day. He'd open his special box with special things inside on a special day. Over the year of course the box would slowly get quieter and quieter, unable to scream anymore, barely able to speak. The year would go by and come full circle and he'd open it and it'd just start screaming and talking again.

Daniel Cain was reading a book on that day. He had nowhere particular to be that night, the young kids always think he's too old to come hang out with them as it were. He had gotten a collection of books recently, a whole room dedicated to wonderful reading. He would of course abandon each collection when he moved, but he felt it was a good hobby to pass the time by. You could hear the clock ticking through out the room and when it struck twelve Dan got up and picked up his special box.

Quietly, almost as if he weren't walking at all, he made his way to the basement. He made not a single sound, as if he were gliding, like the dead. Down in the basement he turned on a light and saw the year old layer of dust. He got a towel and wiped it all away off a desk putting the box onto the surface. He opened some cabins and got out some syringes and tubes and chemicals and lizard scrapings.

And then he opened his box.

He looked down at the thing he kept in his box. A monstrous thing really, something that should have never existed, a mistake on the ways of the world, near proof God if there was one hated his selfish children. The thing in the box rolled its eyes over to Dan, taking in a horrible breath to lungs that were long sense decayed into dust. You could hear the air it sucked in go through the hole at the bottom where the neck and the windpipe ended, it made an eerie whistling sound. The thing tried to move its lips and cracked skin crumpled off as dried out muscle tried to move again. The glasses had fallen down its nose somewhat from all the bustling it had done screaming, and it looked distressed that it could not see.

Dan without even flinching pushed up the glasses for it and the eyes adjusted and widened with ease. It could see and it could see Dan.

"Hey Herbert." Daniel smiled slightly.

The thing in the box tried to smile but dried tissue would not give way, and the brain was too tired to try harder. But that was all right because Daniel could tell by the flare in its eyes that it was happy another year had passed. Daniel squeezed his hands between it and the box, pulling it out gently as he thought it'd be cruel to pull it by its hair.

The thing in the box was once called Herbert West, and it once had a body. But now it was just a head, a piece of meat that should have died long ago.

Daniel placed it gently on the table surface and directed it towards the supplies he had laid out on the table.

"Come on, West." Daniel said.

The thing still took in breaths even though it didn't need to, a force of habit Dan supposed. And slowly it forced its mouth to move and pieces of dried up skin fell off. The eyes scanned the supplies and then it smiled so slightly as if in a daze. Then it shut its eyes and began to speak.

"You've forgotten." It said.

The vocal cords were dried up and shriveled. To call what was coming out of its mouth a voice would be a lie, dead vocal cords can't make a voice, they can only try. And so the thing tried so desperately to speak, and if it were talking to anyone but Dan they would not have been able to understand the deep noises it was making and recognize them as words. But Dan, he knew, he understood the dead.

"We went over this last year, remember, Herbert?" Daniel said.

"…You'll need to remind me." It coughed out.

"Remember, Herbert. I don't memorize how to make it so maybe one day, you won't be able to tell me and we can both die." Dan smiled at his friend's head.

"Dan…" It blinked so slowly, so very tired. "I won't say, without a body."

"Fine." Daniel nodded. "We'll die then." He smiled contently.

The head gave a noise, an objection in dead-speak probably. Daniel couldn't really tell but it seemed Herbert was trying to get something across but wasn't able to. Daniel had no fear of death, he didn't care if he lived another thousand years or not a single minute. It wasn't that he felt there was nothing left to do, the world changed so there was always something to do. He just felt no need to actually do those things. And so he knew, he knew that he'd only live as long as Herbert insisted. And he was fairly sure Herbert would insist for a very long time which he was prepared for. Because Herbert at that moment remembered his fear of death and complied.

"Take the blood there, 10 millimeters and then you'll have to mix it with the hydrogen there…." Herbert spoke.

Each year Daniel opened his special box on that special day to find Herbert West's head. Each year he'd inject it and himself with the reagent, and each year he'd put that head back in the box. Only to open it a year later and see how the reagent wears off. Given enough time all the living experiments of Herbert West slowly decayed away, motor functions no longer supportive and they would just one day, as Herbert said, stop working. And so a year was about it for Herbert's head. That's all it could take without dying. But in the process it decayed as if it were dead, when it was merely dying. The tissue dried up, and there was no more blood in any of the flesh, Daniel wondered what his brain was made up of without any blood, perhaps it was just a rock inside his skull, dried up like the rest of his face.

It'd been a few decades since Herbert West had touched something with his hands. A few decades since Herbert had felt anything really besides the velvet of that box. A few decades of Daniel once a year coming by and giving them a bit of Life in their dead veins. After five or so years Daniel moves away, letting the town forget about him, as if he were never there. And Herbert, all those years he remained in that box, day by day slowly becoming more like what he really was, dead.

Herbert West was never a boy to pay attention to his surroundings, he was completely self absorbed in his own world, he had already forgotten what the outside looked like. Once he saw a tree, a glimpse he found when Daniel had left but a bit of the curtain open. He saw a tree and a horror came upon him as he could not immediately recognize what it was. He had always never really looked outward to the world, but to think, a tree, he didn't even know what a tree was. A horrible sadness came over Herbert that he kept with him for the years to the point where he had forgotten what he was sad about. It's hard remembering in that box, slowly becoming a corpse. You forget things. Slowly dying, the brain turning back to dust, you're bound to forget things.

But there was one thing Herbert never forgot, his formula, to which he had dedicated his short life, and which kept him going.

Yet, now he was just a head, lacking much of a neck anymore, bits had fallen off over the years. See, it messed up his whole plan that he could scarcely remember. It messed up the whole plan. He was supposed to get the formula right. He was supposed to live forever. He was supposed to look at the world without the worry of death. He was supposed to learn about it and soak it in. He was supposed to make friends. He was supposed to love. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to go out and live. Live like the normal people do.

Now he was a head in a box that for one glorious day was out of the box.

And Daniel. Dan who looked just as fine as those days long gone, not even he took the advantages Herbert had meant the formula to be used. He did not go out and live. He stayed with Herbert, watching over that box, bound to Herbert as Herbert was to him.

But unlike Herbert, Daniel didn't seem to care. He was patiently awaiting death to come. Patiently, he was always so very patient. Every day that Herbert had seen him, he sat and read, always different books, but always reading. Always with the same look of contentment. How, Herbert would stare and wonder, how in all that is the world could he be at peace? He stared at Daniel for almost the entire day, there was not much to do when you're a head but stare, and there wasn't much else to look at besides Daniel. And he saw such peace in his face, such contentment, such appreciation for simply sitting there and doing nothing. There was no anger, no hate, there was nothing but joy in that man's face. And he wondered, how, how could it be that way?

He wanted to be happy. He saw that peace and contentment and lust burned inside him for it. He wanted it. He wanted to tear it away from Daniel and claim it as his own and strangle the life right out of Daniel until his very formula seeped out of the man's body. And he'd take that dead body and smash it into nothing, until there was not a single trace of Daniel Cain left.

But Daniel merely read, and smiled, placing Herbert on the piano.

And Herbert West realized this was his life. And a mix of hatred and despair went over him. He wanted to cry and wipe away his tears, but his tear ducts had dried, and he had no hands.

This was all his life would ever be.

After that horrible day.

That damnable day.

Back when he had hands and was about to shoot Daniel.

Back when Daniel was going back to the police.

"Daniel, not again, not again, not again!" Herbert had yelled.

"Herbert, it's happening again! You promised it wouldn't be the same, but it is! You promised!"

"It is different!"

"Look around you!"

The bodies of the dead were screaming. They were writhing on the floor, in such pain and anguish, and Herbert stood above them waiting for their birth to be finished with. The dead, Herbert's dead children, his abortions, his failures, they cried out to their creator, asking in words no one alive could understand, to end it. End this horrible pain. Life was gone, it was rejecting them and it hurt. So they stood and tried to walk and slipped on their own blood as Herbert stared at Daniel.

"You don't even see it, do you?" Daniel shook his head at Herbert. "You…you are a waste of my time!"

A waste of my time. How dare he.

"Me!?" Herbert cried out. "I'm a waste? You're the waste, Dan! You can't see it! You can't see what's in front of you!"

"No you can't, Herbert! You never could! I thought I could show you…" His voice grew very sad then. "I thought I could help you!"

"I don't need your help!"

The Dead cried for it all to end.

"Yes you do…" Daniel shook his head. "God yes you do."

"Stop it!"

"You…you, horrible man, I tried to help you!"

"This works damn it!"

Herbert held up a vile of new serum.

"I know this one works!" Herbert cried out, but Daniel only shook his head.

Then Daniel, began leaving, as the Dead gripped to Herbert.

"Don't you dare leave!" Herbert pointed a gun at him, and Daniel stopped.

"I'm not afraid of you, West." Daniel said.

Herbert fired and the Dead screamed, and Daniel fell to the ground. Herbert had missed, and Daniel grabbed a shovel on the floor and laid still. Herbert was surprised about how bad he felt, thinking he had just killed Daniel. He lifted his formula and without a second thought decided to bring his friend back. Yes, friend, he thought for a moment he had a friend.

Herbert stepped to Daniel, who stood and Herbert out of panic shot blindly towards Dan. Dan in a panic ran over to Herbert and stabbed him in the neck with the shovel.

The Dead screamed.

And Daniel watched as Herbert West was still alive. The man's head was falling over but his body still stood, as if not understanding that it should have fallen over. The body took a step forward as the head slung back further, now just the bone and a few strands of flesh keeping it to the body. The body swung around and the head upside down looked over at Daniel with the deepest shock and fear.

"Da-CK…" The head tried to speak. "He-ACK…"

The body held up the formula and then fell over, dead.

It was only natural what was to come next. And when Herbert was brought back, Dan injected some into his own body, and took Herbert's head which at the time was screaming nonsense and horrible things, and he locked it in the box. The following morning he moved away.

And Herbert West lived and Daniel Cain lived. And Herbert's head sitting on the piano looked over at Daniel Cain, and wondered how much longer, how much longer would he be forced to live his life like this.

"Daniel. I'm sorry." Herbert said.

Daniel smiled, but didn't look up.

"Did you hear me?"

"I heard you, West." Daniel nodded.

"Please, get me a body, I want a body."

Daniel shook his head.

"WHY!?" Herbert screamed.

Daniel didn't say anything.

"When, Dan, when!? When will you give me one!?" Herbert cried out.

"Maybe…" Dan spoke up. "Maybe when I forgive you."

"Forgive me? Forgive me for what!?"

Dan smiled contently and put his book away.

"For everything, West. For everything."

Daniel then swung on his heel and walked back to Herbert. He rested his own head on the piano at level with West's, and smiled. Daniel pushed up Herbert's glasses and then touches his brow slightly with his thumb. Herbert gasped at the sudden sensation of touch.

"Maybe, I'll give you a body, West, when you forgive me." Daniel smiled.

"I forgive you!" Herbert cried out. "Please, Dan, I forgive you!"

Daniel smiled and shook his head.

"Someday, you will for real, and I you." Daniel nodded. "Someday, I won't have to watch you, I won't have to make sure you'll be okay. I mean, West." He laughs to himself. "I injected myself so I could stay with you, so I could protect you. So I could make sure you understood, make sure you saw, make sure you knew, West. I did it because I'm your friend, and I couldn't die knowing after all this time, I still couldn't help you."

Herbert stared at him, not understanding.

"Someday you'll see, how horrible it is what you've done, taken the lives of others, and tried so desperately to destroy what makes life worth living: death." Daniel nodded. "Someday you'll see what destructive force you were, killing everything you touched, Meg, her father, me. Someday you'll see that, and you'll grow, and you'll be able to go out into the world without killing the first thing you see."

Daniel laughs slightly and then walks away.

"Someday, you'll get it. And on that day I'll give you a body, and I'll let myself die."

And after two hours he put Herbert back in the box with little protest.


End file.
